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Becca’s Bike Lady Tattoo

Last year, after a lifetime of being non-athletic and just generally not taking very good care of myself, I started biking with some regularity. This May, I registered for a 2-day fundraising cycling event (www.rideforthefeast.org) that, if I completed it, would include my first century (i.e., 100 miles in a single day; a big deal to cyclists). I told myself that if I completed the century portion of the ride, I’d get a new tattoo to commemorate the achievement. Participating in the event symbolized my commitment to care for my community; completing the event symbolized my commitment to care for myself. Both of those commitments were so important to me that they needed to be marked and celebrated. One week after biking my first century, that celebration happened.

Many people have asked about the tattoo design. It’s original. I sent links to two images (www.melkadel.com/drawings/medium/wheel_shoe_in_garden.jpg and www.terrybicycles.com/product_images/display/7124000.gif) to a dear friend and fellow cyclist and told her I was hoping the tattoo artist could come up with something in between. She sent me back a rough drawing and said, “do you mean something like this?” In fact, I meant something exactly like that. (And no, she’s not a graphic artist. She’s an ER doctor. However, in addition to restarting hearts and soothing drunks, she also has a knack for realizing her friends’ vaguely stated tattoo concepts.)

The work was done by Bill, owner of the Baltimore Tattoo Museum (www.baltotat.com). He is also a cyclist, and he totally loved the design. In fact, he took one look at it and exclaimed, “wow, can I do this?” Bill is a great guy. He is one of those guys who you get the sense would give you his kidney if he thought you really needed it, even if he didn’t know you very well. But despite his obvious heart of gold, the thing that most endeared Bill to me was when, as he was working on the tattoo’s outline, he paused and said, “Heh, your bike lady has a boob.” He was goofy, fun, smart, and excited for me about what I had achieved athletically. Awesome.

-becca

Tattoo by: Bill at the Baltimore Tattoo Museum

This entry was posted on Friday, June 9th, 2006 at 2:42 pm and is filed under Bicycle, Hips, Transportation. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.